


I Wish I Had a River (I Could Skate Away On)

by welcometocabeswater



Series: Moonage Series [4]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: AU, Aromantic, Asexual, F/M, Fluff, Ice Skating, Romance, and pynch's daughter, are so in love, bluesy's son, moonage daydream verse, trc next generation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 13:09:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5541242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/welcometocabeswater/pseuds/welcometocabeswater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Violet Lynch hates Christmas. Sargent Gansey LOVES Christmas. She's willing to compromise, just for him. Cabeswater obliges when Violet decides to take Sargent ice skating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Wish I Had a River (I Could Skate Away On)

**Author's Note:**

> To those who are unfamiliar with the Moonage Daydream AU/verse, this is a next generation series following Violet, Adam/Ronan's daughter and Sargent, Blue/Gansey's son, who are very much in love. You don't really have to read Moonage to understand this one, but of course, it doesn't hurt.

Violet won’t tell him what she’s got up her sleeve. All he knows is she’s leading him into the depths of Cabeswater, determination cut across her face like a savage promise. With that intensely calculated expression, she’s either murdered someone and needs to hide the body or she’s leading him unwitting right into the jaws of a wicked prank. Whatever it is, Sargent doesn’t trust her. Not one bit.

“How much further?” he whines as he continues following her apathetic trudge along their usual path.

Violet doesn’t turn back to address him when she replies with a simple, “not far.” In truth, Violet’s not a fan of Christmas. ...Or holidays… or any opportunity to spread joy. So many exuberant, smiling people are too much for her. That much grinning and laughter is horrifying and her skin crawls with it, leaving her with nothing but a keen desire to scrub it all off in a cold shower or nice, long, relaxing soak in the tub, with naught but a book and rosy bath salts to help her escape from the nauseating happiness in the world. But Sargent… Sargent is pure joy and Violet had the horrifying misfortune of falling head over heels in love with him. And holiday cheer is precisely what Sargent Gansey is all about.

The thing is, Christmas is Sargent’s favourite time of year. He is a February boy, a practical St. Valentine’s son. And romance is his game. But Christmas… Christmas is so much more than that. Christmas gives him the opportunity to express his love for not just Violet, but every single person he loves and who loves him. It’s the ideal holiday for this asexual boy of hers. Platonic love all around.

Violet figures it’s only fair that she reciprocate accordingly.

Despite Virginia’s cold snap, Cabeswater remains mild in climate for the majority of their trek. Violet tinkers absently with the atmosphere around her, just to keep Sarge on his toes. The forest whispers to her with the swish of leafy branches and her mind reaches for it with gentle reassurances. Keep it warm. Just for a little while. Just until…

Winter descends on the terrain, pure white snow sparkling beneath the blinding sun. Frosty snowflakes settle icy on the trees and moss and fallen logs… Everything is sugar-coated, a delightful confection fit for a boy with sugar-coated dreams. Violet doubles back to gauge his reaction.

His awe of the winter wonderland around him is enough to jar his regret for stripping off his coat under Cabeswater’s deceptive springtime of moments before. Violet adjusts her lavender slouchy hat more securely on her head, a difficult, but not impossible feat around her boisterous curls, and come to stand behind him, hands to his shoulders. Sargent’s breath slips out of him in ghostly wisps, tiny souls released from his body with every careful punctuation of lungs, tightened ever so slightly under the cold chill. 

From beneath her guiding hands, Sargent’s body vibrates with shivering. She leans in to press home against his ear, a kiss planted there, before she smirks against his skin. “Put your jacket back on, loser.”

This time, when the shudder runs through him, it’s not from the chill. Violet pulls away, smug with her dastardly ability to undo him with a single whispered insult. The jacket comes back on. As does his ridiculous red-green-and-purple fleece jester’s hat he chose for cold weather such as this. Thank god it isn’t adorned with bells…

He turns to her for confirmation as she stands leaning against a nearby tree, her arms crossed. He pulls his hat more securely over his brow. “You look fucking ridiculous,” she affirms with a concise nod. Sargent’s mouth twists into a put-upon pout too perfect to go unnoticed.

With a relenting sigh, Violet pushes off the bark of her tree and goes to him, arms outstretched. She catches his face in her hands, intent on kissing away every last unimpressed grimace from his expressive mouth. “I fucking love you, you ludicrously dressed asshole.”

Above them, Cabeswater caters to its lovely flower of a granddaughter, sprouting mistletoe: a silent declaration of approval for her choice in young love. Sargent’s eye follows the trickling existence of the sprig of green and white above. Violet, now secured, safe in Sarge’s arms, follows his gaze. “Oh, shut up,” she huffs, dragging him by the collar of his coat out of the mistletoe’s reach. She guides him further into a spray of trees until the trail empties out into a clearing. At Violet’s silent tread, Cabeswater obliges, just like she’d planned. A fine sheen of ice spreads across the previously empty plateau.

“What?” Sargent gasps as the frozen river comes into being before his very eyes. Magic. This girl and her forest are magic, creating such beautiful scenes between them. Violet simply smirks back at him, still smug with her plans she’s kept so well under wraps thus far.

“I’m taking you skating, Sarge,” Violet confirms, clapping a hand back to his shoulder.

Sargent shakes himself out of it, his head clear enough to close his gaping, awestruck mouth. “You planned this?”

Violet nods with a bite to her lip, suddenly self-conscious at being caught out doing something so utterly uncharacteristic. “And you’d better fucking like it. I’m trying to be romantic.”

Sargent knows a big deal when he sees one. He knows how hard it is for her to muster up the will to get beyond her aromantic disregard for all things sappy in order to reciprocate in this relationship. It’s a balance they silently strike between them: a compromise from one hand into another. Sarge gives her what she wants in bed and Vi gives him what his melting puddle of a heart wants, saved for special occasions, because he knows how difficult this is for her. On these rare occasions, she goes the extra mile and he loves her for the pains she goes through against her better judgments to do this for him.

“Aww, Vi. This is amazing!” he reassures her, squeezing her to him. And he does love it. Of course he does. She did this for him. And yet there’s something missing… “I don’t want to alarm you, though. We don’t have any ice skates…”

Violet lets out a short, clipped laugh, disentangling herself from his grip. “I’m not a complete idiot!” she gripes, not unpleasantly. She hunches down onto a nearby log and lifts one foot over her knee. With her left hand, she swipes fingers over the air an inch or so below her boot. The gesture kicks Cabeswater’s magic back into gear and it obliges once more, sending ice to crystallize in a sharp blade, attached to the sole of her shoe. She does the same to the other foot, while Sargent looks on, gaping at this tag-team of girl and forest, making magic happen under her every touch. She is magical and it’s awe-inspiring every time.

“Come here. Let me do you,” she orders him with a flick of her wrist. He doesn’t need to be told twice and he treads toward her, his stunning magic girl.

Before long, she’s pulling him up on finely engineered ice blades. For a single, horrifying moment, Sargent fumbles on the new sensation of walking on the sharp, slick blade’s edge, his arms windmilling, and reaching frantically for her. Violet stands, unperturbed beside him and rolls her eyes when his fingers claw for her forearm for balance.

He hangs on her arm through the entire process of alighting the ice. Violet’s seamless in her movements, as she is with everything she does. She’s a dancer, and her body won’t ever let anyone forget it, in its graceful mechanisms, clicking in and out of place like a perfect clockwork doll. But she’s more than that. She’s fluid and moves like coursing water itself, her limbs light and uninhibited by self-conscious clumsiness that instead inhabits Sargent’s every move.

Violet’s eager to part from him, if only to show off her twists and turns across the ice, her feet a gliding whirl of wide figure-eights. Meanwhile, Sargent finds it difficult to appreciate the beauty of Violet’s artform of choice as his center of gravity shifts dangerously beneath him. His body crumples, piece by piece, until he’s nearly crouched, scared to move from his position lest he fall over.

Violet does a complex turn and skates backwards, getting a pitiful glimpse of her poor, uncoordinated boyfriend, hunched down and untrusting of his own legs, unsteady beneath him. “Get over here, you loser,” she entices him with her usual menacing bite. Antagonism tends to do the trick, especially when he knows underneath it all, she’s really trying to be kind in her own unorthodox way. Her arms outstretch to receive him and the action reassures his back to straighten out. One tentative foot slides to the left, then the right. Sarge takes a breath, maybe this isn’t so bad… Again and again, he takes little strides until his fingers reach for hers. But having Violet in his sights, finally, distracts his feet for long enough to pull them out from under him. Traitors. And just as he grips her hands in his, he goes down, taking Violet with him.

“God dammit, Sargent Gansey. You uncoordinated fuck!” Her war cry rattles out of her as she crash lands on top of him, arms bracing around his back. But she’s laughing and he’s laughing and the pain ripping through Sargent’s tailbone from the fall fades to nothing as they kiss, right there, horizontal on the ice.

Rosy cheeked from the cold and from mutual affection they can never get over, even after years together, they pull apart, beaming at one another. Holiday-averse Violet nudges up against the corner where Sargent’s nose gives way to his cheek bone, begrudgingly accepting her lot in life, impressing her holiday-loving boy into keeping her that much longer with romantic gestures that otherwise turn her stomach. “Merry Christmas, Richard Campbell Gansey IV.”

He can’t stop smiling as he breathes her in in their close proximity. “Merry Christmas, you.”


End file.
